Re: Bitstrings, Ontological Status and Time

From: Jesse Mazer <lasermazer.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 16:31:45 -0400

Stephen Paul King wrote:

>Dear Hal,
>
>>[HF]
>>Granted, relativity theory is not a complete and accurate specification
>>of the world in which we live (that requires QM to be incorporated),
>>but it is still a self-consistent model which illustrates how time can
>>be dealt with mathematically in a uniform way with space. Time and
>>space are not fundamentally different in relativity; they shade into
>>one another and can even change places entirely, if you cross the event
>>horizon of a black hole.
>
>[SPK]
>
> I am trying to include the implications of QM in my thinking and hence
>my point about time and my polemics against the idea of "block" space-time.
>I do not care how eminent the person is that advocates the idea of Block
>space-time, they are simply and provably wrong.

What would your proof be? All quantum field theories are Lorentz-invariant
(so the same laws apply in different reference frames with different
definitions of simultaneity), although this refers only to the equations
governing the dynamics of the fields in between measurements. The
measurement process itself is still somewhat mysterious, so perhaps some
interpretations of QM would say that it violates Lorentz-invariance, like
Bohm's interpretation (although Bohm's interpretation has never been
successfully extended from nonrelativistic quantum mechanics to relativistic
quantum field theory) or certain variations of the Copenhagen
interpretation. But I don't think any version of the MWI would say that
measurement introduces a preferred reference frame.

Jesse
Received on Sat May 07 2005 - 16:37:33 PDT